Meandering Maunderings of a Stick Player

Now, you are just splashes of light and dark, color and paleness, drifting away as my screen scrolls.

Drifting.

We are on a road, somewhere near Ojai. It is the perfect February day: crisp and clear, but not cold. We have a destination, but it isn’t important at this moment.

I look over at you, and am overcome with your loveliness. For the millionth time, I wonder how, with all the reasons why not, we are together. But we are.

And in my mind, I am holding you, just to feel who you are. I drive on, in a rare state of contentment.

Fast forward to That Day.

Nothing could have prepared me for the devastation I witnessed. I could not fathom the lost self-possession that had been your hallmark. Yes, you were crazy, now. The demons you’d fought for a quarter of a century had taken advantage of a lull in your defenses, swarmed the battlements, and taken even the high tower where you had made your final refuge.

I know you fought bravely and hard, for a long time. This was not weakness.

But they took you, and now you are just words on a social networking site.

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Dreams are the very substance of reality. Reality is not protected or defended by laws, proclamations, ukases, cannons and armadas. Reality is that which is sprouting all the time out of death and disintegration. You can’t do anything to it; you can’t add or subtract, you can only become more and more aware. Those who are partly aware are the creators; those who are fully aware are the gods and they move among us silent and unknown. The function of the artist, who is only one type of creator, is to wake us up. The artists stimulate our imagination. They open up for us portions of reality, unlatch the doors which we habitually keep shut. They disturb us, some more than others. Some remind me of those Russians who are trained to go forth single-handed and meet the invading tanks. They seem so puny and defenseless, but when they hit the mark they cause inestimable havoc. We have good reason to fear them, those of us who are asleep. They bring the light that kills as well as illumines. There are lone figures armed only with ideas, sometimes with just one idea, who blast away whole epochs in which we are enwrapped like mummies. Some are powerful enough to resurrect the dead. Some steal on us unawares and put a spell over us which it takes centuries to throw off. Some put a curse on us, for our stupidity and inertia, and then it seems as if God himself were unable to lift it.

– Henry Miller. from The Air Conditioned Nightmare

I choose this image, “Broken Bridge of the Dream”, by Salvador
Dali, because in The Air Conditioned Nightmare, Miller disparages
Dali for being only a consummate technician, but not living
the artist’s life of passion.

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Life began.
It just did.
In that gooey stuff that was to pass for time,
There was a moment, and then There Was Life™.

It was the same moment the universe was made.
And because time really isn’t,
It was the same moment every mote was made;
And every energy ravaging star
That was or ever will be;
And there were great collidings,
Barely giving time for coalescing before the massive forms
Rent one another in blinding demonstrations of cosmic force.

But we were not made, for we did the making, and were,
And are,
The Life that we created.
Formless or formed, it is us.